Flying Fox Across the Moon

By Ben Laffra

     A story about the Loots family of India that contains the fragrance, mystery, and excitement of the raw Indian subcontinent during the British Raj period; told in an imaginative, amusing self-deprecating style with thoroughly engaging candor. 

      A fictional novel told cheerfully in the first person about the foibles of the Loots family and about the life of the protagonist Tom Loots himself and how he develops from childhood to adulthood.

     The story is told with engaging self-deprecating humor in two distinct parts. In the first part, Tom portrays the idiosyncrasies of the Loots family and the imperfection of the British Raj era in India; and in the second part, Tom uncovers his own quirky development.

     The genre is"Bildungsroman".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Optimus Maximus Publishing
• Release date: Sep 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781944732516

Book preview

FLYING FOX ACROSS THE MOON

©2020 Ben Laffra

First Edition

Cover art by Jeffrey Kosh Graphics

Published by Optimus Maximus Publishing, LLC

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-944732-51-6

TABLE OF CONTENT

Foreword by Elizabeth Haran

PART ONE

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

PART TWO

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

PART THREE

30

31

32

33

34

PART FOUR

35

36

37

PART FIVE

38

39

40

PART SIX

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

Bibliography

About the Author

Description: File:Elizabeth Haran.jpg - Wikipedia

Ben Laffra has surprised me and will perhaps startle many of his followers with his new release of Flying Fox across the Moon. He has stepped away from his usually serious genre of Historical Fiction to write a thoroughly entertaining light hearted book of a family with the name of Loots in India. Its written style is a classic example of a first person protagonist narrator. While the story is represented as a fictional account, Ben Laffra’s whimsical description of the idiosyncrasies of the many characters strewn across the pages appear very real. His version of the British Raj of India is revealed as a fascinating, hypnotic and eccentric era and the individuals in the Loots Clan of Cantonment Bangalore are delightfully described as equally strange; if not a bit wacky! And when you read about the impish behaviour, capers and life of Tom Loots it smacks once more of a real life character. Frankly that makes it all the more interesting and leads one on to delightful conjecture of whether it’s really fiction or a concealed biography! Whichever; he has crafted a story that’s brim-full with humour to make you laugh and feel good about yourself ... just the tonic for this unhappy period!

I can’t help but think; is there just the faint delicate blush of Harper Lee’s characters lurking within this story?

Elizabeth Haran.

International bestselling Author of twenty books published in ten different languages that have even made the prestigious German Der Spiegel best seller list selling well over two million copies.

www.facebook.com/aussieoutbackauthor/

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PART ONE

The Loots clan!

1

The Loots shady past!

The epic battle and siege of Arcot way back in 1751 established Sir Robert Clive in the English History Books as a hero and forevermore marked a sea change in the fortunes of the East India Company in the sub-continent of India.

Some seventy years later Arcot was the scene of another change of lesser significance, but just as permanent.

Since 1709 the surname of Loots had withstood the test of time and the scourge of corrupted spelling (which was a common occurrence at that time) until it took a dramatic turn in the 1820s. The offender who started it was none other than my great, great Grandfather George Francis Loots. He was a soldier in the East India Company and was serving in the very same garrison fort at Arcot of Robert Clive fame.

George Loots married Martina Nancy Nicholas at Arcot on the 20th of February 1821 and very likely collected his East India Company claim of one Gold Mohur in doing so.

He also appears to have married a second time to a Mary something or other, though this piece of information is under a serious cloud of suspicion! Did shifty George surreptitiously acquire himself a concubine so he could pocket another Gold Mohur?

This, of course, throws up another mystery; to wit, from which side of the blanket were we Loots descended? Was it Martina Nancy or concubine Mary? This was a scandal of epic proportions and an awful skeleton in the cupboard never to be revealed, discussed, hinted at, or even dare think about by the Loots clan.

There were other reasons why old George was considered quia undesirable as there was a grave suspicion he was a bit of a scoundrel to boot. He sometimes used the name of Frank Letts and there was the sneaking belief that he was into the business of illicit brewing and bootlegging of arrack; which was a very popular and potent liquor brew.

However, no matter what his nefarious activity might have been it did not affect his career or it might indeed have even advanced it. George Francis Loots became the Farrier Major in the Governor’s Bodyguard, 7th Native Cavalry, Fort St George, in Madras India.

His august position advanced his libido, as well, as the blighter produced thirteen children between Martina Nancy and Concubine Mary. In the process, it was presumed the arrack he brewed also muddled his brain. At the christening of his substantial brood he managed to corrupt the spelling of our surname Loots; not once but in five of his thirteen brood who ended up being christened with various misspelled variations of the Loots surname!

George Francis died of dysentery in 1865. He must have accidentally guzzled the local water instead of his illicit arrack!

Having consigned Philandering George to the vault of secrecy it was far safer for the Loots Clan to throw up shaggy dog stories of earlier forebears of the Loots. And while I took care never to air my contrary views, I must confess, with the sliver of the old scoundrel lurking within me I rather liked old George Francis!

2

The Loots and the British Raj of India!

If there was ever a writer that eloquently captured the nuance of the period of the British Raj it was Rudyard Kipling. I loved Kipling’s story of Kim. It was stirring stuff and reading. I wanted to be Kim one day and work in the British Secret Service and I swore a secret oath I would. But alas, like many of my ambitions the spine of conviction was missing and changed frequently on the inspiration and the moment of the day. I never did honour that oath. That aside, Kipling wrote a vast number of poems one of which was titled Gunga Din.

Kipling copped a fair bit of criticism about his writings on India. Some of his critics accused him of being patronising toward the Indian peoples in his works and some even accused him of being an Imperial racist. But I am perhaps less unkind, for if Gunga Din is picked apart for its subliminal meaning it captures the romantic haunting memory of The British Raj. On the one hand, you have the British Soldier who admits to his constant persecution of the humble Indian water and ammunition carrier on the battlefields of the Afghan wars of the 1800s; yet, when he, the soldier is badly wounded in the battle, its Gunga Din who gives him water, carries him to safety, dresses his wounds and in the act of saving his life sacrifices his own.

The soldier laments:

By the livin’ Gawd that made you; You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

We Anglo Indian’s mimicked the British way of life in every possible way and that has to do with how we came into being and why we lived in a twilight bubble of our own. It was inescapable because we were born, raised, and believed we were just darker copies of the British. It shaped our lives completely as well as the standards, mores, and foibles of the time.

We believed in the pristine provenance of an anglicized name; like Jones or Smith or Macfarlane and so on, while blithely ignoring their complexion. In short, those favoured by Mendel’s Law were as white, freckled, blue-eyed and blond as any Englishman while others not so favoured varied in complexion from the touch of the tar through the full spectrum of jet black. Nevertheless, we set ourselves apart as a superior tribe. So; some Anglo Indians affected a very pronounced British behaviour, some tried to fake themselves as really being British, others wanted to be superior to the natives so were downright ignorant racist’s; and a few simply accepted they were different and could do without the prejudiced phobias.

Will Loots raised us to accept others as fellow human beings and that we were simply different. I think living in the bush, surrounded, and living with the local indigenous folk embedded his philosophy within our subliminal. I never once heard him speak a derogatory word about the local folk, but I did hear him gently chastise (as was his way) his sisters for doing so. His older siblings were racist.

I was to learn a lesson one day as well. Will had a new Assistant posted to him by the name of Nathan. Will told Carrie that Mr Nathan had told him he enjoyed English food and would eat anything so one night he was invited to dinner. Mr Nathan went through a helping of soup followed by two big helpings of Jemima’s beef stew that would have challenged even Hansie’s appetite! Anyway, Carrie asked him courteously if he would like some more: No thank you Madam he replied tapping his pretty full midriff, I am fully fed up! There was a split second of silence in which my childish guffaw was embarrassingly clear. Will looked at me, as only Will could when angry and quietly said: Now that you’ve finished your dinner Thomas you can wish Mr Nathan good night and go to your room okay?

I did as told and toddled off to my room and bed feeling pretty miserable on two counts. I felt I had let Will down and secondly I went without my favourite burnt custard dessert. I didn’t get any left-over dessert either because Carrie gave the bowl to Mr Nathan to take home. Sometime the next day I sort of mumbled a sort of apology to Will. He gave my thick spikey mop a forgiving rub before adding: It’s all right Tom so long as you remember that English is not his language and yet can speak it. Anyone who can speak another language should be respected okay?

Well, it was a lesson learned; at least for a while!

There is an interesting process on how the British Raj of India came into being, how ingeniously it was crafted and how it led to the engineering of the Eurasian or Anglo Indian tribe. I was just about the age of intelligent curiosity (for a change) and started to wonder about what was what! I had figured out that we Loots were different from the local country folk but stumped as to why and how? Will, who knew everything from bridges to bugouts and everything in-between and while I never saw him read the Bible; read National Geographic with the same religious intent, was bound to know. He did.

It started with the Greeks under Alexander the Great way back in 325 BC who were the first Europeans in India. They came overland on a meandering torturous route through Teheran and Afghanistan to finally arrive at the Indus. Now while there is a great deal of myth, fact and fiction surrounding his exploits in north-west India he did encourage his troops to intermarry with the local peoples. Their progeny were perhaps the first Eurasians of India, who were to disappear in the mists of time and the milieu of the indigenous population. The Loots was not from this era.

The next Europeans to arrive and stay for a long time were the Portuguese much later in 1498 AD. They came by sailing ship via the Cape. They finally established Goa as their main trading centre and just like Alexander; Afonso de Albuquerque encouraged intermarriage with the Indians. He was a wise fellow as he was known to even personally solemnise these inter-racial weddings. This Portuguese European and indigenous mixed progeny came to be known as Lueso’s and Goan’s. The Loots were not of this early era either, but I was beginning to get the drift.

Meanwhile, an important event happened in 1526. The Mughals from the region of Persia invaded and occupied the North and most of the central region of India and brought the Muslim religion with them. Their rule lasted around 330 years and had a profound influence in India. Strangely it was the powerful Mughal’s who were linked to the rise of the British Raj over time and in turn the Eurasian tribe and we Loots.

Attracted to the honeypot of India the Dutch followed the Portuguese almost 100 years later; the English shortly after (a sea voyage of about 22,000 km), then the Danes and finally the French. They all came as traders and with the blessings of the Mughal rulers they established trading enclaves on the East and West coasts, but it’s the Brits that finally stayed to conquer.

The Brits under the East India Company liked what they saw in India and set about getting a piece of the action. You know; useless stuff like diamonds, gold, silver, timber, silks, jute, indigo, spices and a lot more including snuff and opium!

After a while, the Brits started to think about expanding throughout India. Why not exploit the opportunity? They took stock of the situation and identified the two hurdles to be overcome. The first being the North Central region controlled by the powerful Muslim Mughal’s and the second being the warring Hindu kingdoms in the rest of the country.

Now, while the Mughals were the dominant rulers much of the rest of the country was ruled by a bunch of small rather despotic Maharajas. Astonishingly, there were about five hundred of these little eccentrics sort of ruling the roost in their little realms and living it up at the expense of their poor taxpaying citizens.

Almost a hundred and fifty years ago some of these egocentrics, aside from several palaces and a bevy of beautiful concubines (lucky them!) had their private gold reserves, had their own currency, had their own postal service and stamps and their own army to safeguard their power as well as to fight amongst themselves! To top it off, over time some even had their own private state steam-powered railways. One of them had a golden throne in his carriage and another had his carriage covered with ivory striping and all the hardware made from gold; all obligingly built for them by the Brits for a handsome sum! As per Will the Maharajas took a great deal of pride in their Railways and described their steam engines as polished gold-bees.

Again as per Will, the significant step the clever Brits took toward the goal of British Raj was the policy of divide et impera or divide and rule.

First, they ingratiated themselves with the Mughals convincing them that they were no threat to their rule. The second step was to form alliances with the plethora of fabulously rich Maharajas through bullying and coercion, quite confident that the Hindu Maharajas did not trust the Muslim Mughals to come to their aid. However, not all the Maharajas were push-overs and that was a problem that had to be dealt with.

Another problem that confronted them was competition from the Dutch and the French who were equally keen on expanding their power and the Brits didn’t like that! So they set about getting rid of the Dutch and the French with a few major punch-ups on the battlefield. The Dutch had better things to do in Batavia in Indonesia and nicked off, while the French sulked and then withdrew into a few isolated enclaves to lick their wounds. The Dutch and the French were not celibates and their liaisons with the local native girls had a very natural result.

However, the wily Brits knew that they could not control India without an army they could rely on. England was a long way around the Cape and recruiting and retaining a standing British army in India was very expensive. India was about fifteen times larger than England with a population of around 300 million with some of the areas still very hostile to their presence. So what did they do? They did two smart things. The first was to recruit and train the Sikhs who had been persecuted for ages by the Muslim Mughals and hated them anyway, as well as their cousins the Jats who also loathed the Mughals and finally the excellent mercenary Gurkhas from Nepal. So the Brits now had a standing native army.

Next, European women could not suffer the long sea voyage or survive the rigours of the harsh Indian conditions so there were none of them to marry. Just like the French and the Dutch, it’s hardly believable that something like fifty-thousand East India Company employees and its Soldiers were sworn celibates is it? So miscegenation with the very comely native Indian women was probably already rife. Why not give it official sanction and reap the progeny as a reward? So, the clever Brits now officially encouraged and recognized intermarriage with local Indian women and in some cases actually paid them the handsome sum of one Gold Mohur. Their men took to it with enthusiasm including my Great, Great Grandfather George Loots.

George Loots was, however, no comparison to one David Ochterlony who was appointed Resident to the Mughal court of Delhi. While George had thirteen children David had thirteen Indian wives, or concubines and a string of children! Perhaps to show his macho libido he paraded them and his children on elephants each evening through the streets of Delhi. Lucky him!

Over centuries, the progeny of these engineered marriages were termed variously as Indo-Briton, Country Born, Native-Born, Indian Colonials and Eurasians; and no doubt a few other rather choice and colourful colloquial terms as well! The term Eurasian stuck as the most common description for a long time. The English speaking and loyal Eurasians, who aspired to be British in every way were to become the backbone of the East India Company Army and in time the mainstay of the vast infrastructure that was crafted during the British Raj.

For around two hundred and fifty years, the Brits with the help of their native army as well as the expanding numbers of Eurasians gradually ate away at the power of the Mughals to finally establish themselves as rulers of India.

Okay, now what? They had a vast country to govern and a vast population to control with some areas still rather hostile toward them. So, just like the clever little beavers, they set about creating an infrastructure of canals, roads, telegraph lines of communication and railways while taxing the Indians for the privilege as well!

Will reckoned that the Brits didn’t go about building this huge infrastructure because they loved the Indians or planned to make India a future tourist attraction, it was done to feather their own nests. That’s what Imperialism is about anyway. Firstly, the roads and the rail were to move garrisoned troops quickly to any trouble spot around the country and second; they were strategically built to connect the productive hinterland to the shipping ports so they could carry off the produce to good old Blighty in their ships!

Nevertheless, Will said the Brits did a very good job over the years of stabilizing the country with a proper structure of civil law and order, an impartial judiciary, an honest and proper tax system, postal, excise and customs systems and a single national currency. They also encouraged the establishment of very good hospitals and universities and instituted English as the general Franca lingua. They also established well designed and comfortable Cantonments across the Country to house the Army. Bangalore Cant was one of the best. So, to be fair, the Brits created wealth to appropriate; something the French and Dutch never learned to do. Again as per Will who knew his history better than most, the Brits were the master colonisers.

It’s also fair to point out that while the overall British policy was self-serving many Brits amongst the Civil Service genuinely loved India and its peoples; albeit in a paternalistic fashion and many were second and even third-generation sons of Civil Servants who worked in India because of this attachment. Many even retired to stay on in India for the rest of their lives. Living was cheap in the pleasant and salubrious hill stations of Kashmir, Shimla, Darjeeling, Coonoor, Bangalore Cant and other regions. As Will said, why would you go back to England to live in a comparative hovel and freeze in the process?

The issue of manning this vast infrastructure with loyal English speaking subjects, at least the middle management was resolved by the presence of the loyal Eurasian’s. Bingo, the future prosperity of the British Raj was safeguarded! To show their gratitude to the Eurasians, the Brits formally recognised and gazetted the community as Anglo Indian. Very kind of the Brits indeed! They must have had a reason, though even Will had no idea what it was.

The strange paradox, however, is that the vast majority of the peoples of India, especially in the rural areas never saw us as Anglo Indian or Indian but as some sort of strange foreigner! However, despite we Anglo Indian’s subliminal desire to be in all things very British, they said we were Indians with some European blood while the Indians said we were Europeans with some Indian blood. Gosh, what a jolly mess, but as the wise Will said; What we are, we are and there’s no point pretending to be something different.However, Will was sure many Anglo Indians struggled with the fragility of this twilight status and unfortunately many were bloody-minded racists to boot, and he might just have had the Loots clan in mind when he said that.

The railways were the most important and certainly the largest of the infrastructure projects undertaken by the Brit’s in India. It peaked during the British Raj to 41,200 miles of railway track. Pretty good going, considering the total rail track in Mother England was only 19,500 miles. To serve their purposes the Brits made India into the third largest rail system in the world after the USA and Russia.

It made sense to run the telegraph and telephone lines alongside the track to control the safe movement of the trains as well as for communication from one station to the next. In short, the telegraph connected every small wayside railway station to various towns and thence to cities and every post office in-between simply by following the railway line. These telegraph lines comprised the arteries and veins of a vast communication system. And the railways, post and telegraphs, Police, Customs, Forestry, Mining and many other services around the country were operated by us Anglo Indians!

To further show their appreciation of this loyal tribe the Brits made a couple of concessions. First, every Mail and Express train had a section of 1st Class compartments signed: Reserved for Europeans and Anglo Indians only, which meant no ethnic Indian person could enter these specially reserved compartments. The second was that in every major railway colony there were two Railway Institutes; again one for the Europeans and Anglo Indians and another for the indigenous Indian folk. The European Railway Institute was fully furnished and well equipped with a large wooden dance floor, bar, and billiard room while the Indian Railway Institute was a small building with a few chairs and card tables. Now if this wasn’t a version of racist segregation one wonder’s what is! Will was quick to point out that we smug Anglo Indian’s now elevated socially (in some instances at least) to the lofty station of the Brits were very gratified with our superior position and showed no guilt about it either!

I got my education from Will. The Loots Clan were part of this Anglo Indian tribe of bitsers or fruitcakes or whatever sobriquet one might conjure up including some rather colourful and derogatory ones like half-tickets, eight-annas and half-castes; but as Will would often say: If you’re stupid enough to call the local people wogs and pariahs, don’t complain if they return the compliment!

3

The Cantonment Loots!

The Cantonment or Bangalore Cant was the spiritual home of the Loots even before Sarah loots time. It even had its own Cantonment Railway station. If you belonged so to speak and had established your credentials as a true Cantonment inhabitant you never said just Bangalore. It sounded too common from the elitist convention. Snobbery required it to be referred to as The Cantonment or Bangalore Cant and only true residents may refer to it as Bangy between themselves and not any outsiders. They would be dubbed pretenders and to be shunned. In short, Bangy residents were social climbers, name-droppers and obstinate snobs and had airs about them.

Such was the conceit that Cantonment inhabitants even had to differentiate and firmly stamp their superior status on the unfortunate occupants of adjoining Bangalore City who they looked down upon. If truth be known Bangalore City was much higher in elevation to the Cantonment and even needed a banking engine attached to the rear of the trains at the Cant to push them up the steep gradient to the City station. But the Cantonment snobs considered this a mere accident of inconsiderate topography and consigned the issue to the bin of inconvenient truths.

There was some rationale to this snobbery though and that was thanks to the foresight of the Brits of yore. Searching for a place with a fine salubrious climate and fewer mosquitoes; a British military engineer in the East India Company, John Blakiston discovered Bangalore. He soon drew up the plans for the largest and finest Military Cantonment of the peninsular of India to house the Infantry and Cavalry in 1809. The Cantonment developed with wide roads and shady avenues and was strategically dotted with public parks and not one but two vast botanic gardens. Garrison Churches, Cathedrals, Schools, hospitals a central Market and fashionable residential suburbs with fashionable names were included in his layout. All this made the Cantonment a very desirable place to live in and the snobs a sliver of credibility.

Meanwhile to the West and outside the Cantonment; the unfortunate Bangalore City was left to its own devices to develop into a teeming mass of narrow streets and overcrowded dwellings. So even though Bangalore City was at a distinctly higher altitude the Cantonment snobs could look down on them from the rampart of conceited society!

As far back as anyone could remember three stories constantly swirled around in the Loots Clan as to the foundation of the Loots in India and folklore was the standard currency. The dominant Clan folklore was there was a Dutch forbear who was of such immense girth and height that he had to have a special horse to carry him around. The second yarn was that being such a huge man the ring on his middle finger was so big it could fit around a baby’s wrist! I was giddy with this knowledge.

But by the time Will and his siblings came along, none could boast this Dutchman’s immense build and on the contrary, all were rather short. The story of the ring however lingered on. As folklore had it the huge ring was broken down, some gold added to it and rings made for only the males of his offspring. Consequently, Will and his male siblings now had rings with still a smidgen of gold from the original. This was accepted as gospel especially when Aunty Bunny, the renowned family snob confirmed it with a touch of envy and a curve of her thin lips.

The third tall tale was that this mighty big Dutch ancestor married a Muslim Princess no less, who also happened to be a divorcee! Unfortunately, this romantic yarn didn’t quite suit the facts as was found out a long, long time later but the folklore did get one thing right; Nicolas Benjamin Loots was Dutch.

Bernice, known within the clan as Bunny was Will’s eldest sister by a fair few years and she was the proverbial snob of the clan. She was not happy with this lacklustre Dutch forbear and floated her own shaggy-dog story that the Loots, as well as the ring were actually descended from a very prominent Swiss banker who was the one that really married the Muslim Princess and not this banal Dutchman! She was privately and decisively outvoted on that story.

Now we were not the only Loots of Bangalore Cant as there was one more Loots family who lived on the other side of town. The inference of the other side being the suburb they lived in did not carry the pristine provenance of a fashionable label like Fraser, Langford, Cooke, Richmond, Benson or even St Johns Hill but the rather common name of Shoolay. It had the ring of poverty about it and it was looked down upon by the snobbish fraternity of the Cantonment. We Loots of up-market leafy Fraser Town were not completely devoid of snobbery, at least some of us anyway.

Bunny was the doyen of the Loots for snobbery. She had the right to occupy that position. She was the eldest sister, had buried two husbands at a fairly early age, was wealthy, lived in a fine home, a respected member of the RSPCA, a collector of fine paintings and period furniture, bred Australian Sydney Silkies; one of which was a snarling vicious little beast was a pillar of three churches (depending on which Padre was the flavour of the month with whom she didn’t have a lingering disagreement), attended public auctions with the same regularity of Church and grew a magnificent red poinsettia in her front garden.

By the time I was growing up Aunty Bunny was a lot older. She had a broad forehead, a narrow mind, hard lines around her thin lips that were permanently pursed, a hairdo every week, bandy legs that must always be covered in cotton stockings that looked loose on her skinny legs and an acid tongue that could remove the rust from a long-discarded plow in the paddock.

The Shoolay Loots are no relation of ours, she would announce with total conviction. It wasn’t the first time she had said it in the presence of others. She seemed obsessed with the Shoolay Loots family. What constituted a relationship in her view was based not on blood but on where they lived! Shoolay being the poor suburb of the Cantonment the Loots family living there couldn’t possibly be related, could they? The snub didn’t stop there either. Blondie Loots of Shoolay was so named because she was blond, fair and very good looking too. No one seemed to know or care if she had a real first name. But that was poor compensation for Bunny as she expanded: That daughter of theirs, Blondie, has airs about her doesn’t she?

Aunty Ivy who was a dear compared to Aunty Bunny was not to be outdone by her much older sibling and chimed in with a guillotine-like slur of character assassination without the slightest shred of evidence: And she’s not shy to trade on it either my dear. Have you seen the ridiculous high heeled shoes she wears?

Since neither Ivy nor Bunny could wear high heeled shoes, and if they tried they would topple over, it was the sealer on Blondie’s fate. The ensuing snigger from Aunty Bunny meant she thought the very worst of the poor innocent Blondie and all because she lived in Shoolay and wore high heeled shoes.

Granny Sarah Loots, who was the only one who probably knew the facts wasn’t about to tell: They do share rooms on the main road though and not in the patch Bernice. The patch was the colloquial term for any section of any town where the poorest of the poor working class lived.

Bunny scoffed at this minor distinction: It’s still Shoolay Mother.

Sarah still tried to assert some semblance of long vanquished authority over her now rich daughter: It’s still within the Cantonment Bunny.

Bunny pursed her lips in annoyed exasperation at this minor geographical error: Well it should be moved out then.

Granny Loots twiddled her thumbs, a long-held habit, and left Bunny to shift centuries-old municipal boundaries at will because of the Shoolay Loots!

Puzzled by this logic I asked Will what all this talk meant and why we couldn’t be related since we had the same name?

People who talk that way have bile on the liver Thomas. His opinion was delivered with the incisive brevity the envy of any Supreme Court Judge.

Having bile on the liver sounded pretty serious so I figured from his answer that Aunty Bunny and Aunty Ivy badly needed an enema or at least a good helping of Will’s powerful homebrew of omum water which according to him fixed everything.

Now there was nothing I disagreed with on what Will said, he sort of knew everything, after all, he read every issue of the National Graphic that was ever printed, but young as I was I drew the line on his magical omum water. It was vile stuff I reckoned.

I never discovered if the attractive Blondie was, in fact, a cousin!

4

The delicate art of name-dropping!

Over the years the Loots of the Cantonment had developed the fine art of name-dropping. Rubbing shoulders, so to claim, with the rich and famous was quite useless unless it could be swanked about. The Clan spared no opportunity to do so. Just the quiet hint, the shrug of the shoulders, as if it was of no real significance yet nevertheless required public airing without too much elaboration at a Church tea, wedding, a party or the most reliable of all gossip exposure; the quiet tété-á-tété.

Oh quite; we Loots’s know Sir Yoonus Sait and the family rather well would do. The Anglo Indian community was small enough and garrulous enough for the gospel to spread and to be duly embellished. If truth is known, it was only Sarah Loots who could make such a claim and later Kate Loots but that small matter was judiciously overlooked.

Once that seed had been duly sown on the verdant ground to bloom, the next casual name-drop would be: Oh by the bye, have you heard that Sunoo is back from another successful tour in London and Paris? Sunoo being the Clan’s proprietary name for none other than Ram Gopal the world-renowned classical Indian dancer. There was a tad more veracity in the declared connection to this famous man, but the nuance and the mystery of the relationship had to be seen as delicate.

Again, it was Sarah Loots who was the real conduit as she brought Bissano Ram Gopal into this world. He was the son of a Rajput Barrister and a very attractive Anglo-Burmese mother. Sunoo was delivered by Sarah Loots in their palatial home Torquay Castle on Millers Road, complete with a swimming pool and a tennis court.

While there was the Clan story that Sunoo’s father was dead against his only son’s proclivity for and obvious skill for classical Indian dancing. He wanted him to be a Barrister as well, while his mother encouraged his love of dancing. Sunoo continued to practice and train diligently. While still a child, Sunoo was invited to dance for the Yuvaraja of Mysore at the Lalita Mahal palace in the presence of the Viceroy. Bejewelled like the Boy Krishna and fortified with a gulp of champagne, he danced his heart out. He was rapturously applauded. It changed his father’s mind. Sunoo went on to become a world figure on the artistic stage of Indian classical dance and now danced his way firmly into Loots folklore.

Early in his career, he received a break that was to catapult him into international fame. La Meri, the internationally famous American folkloric danseuse, and her troupe were in India and she was enchanted by Sunoo’s grace and performance. She invited him to join her tour of the Far East and it was in Tokyo that he received rave notices of his performance: The soul of a genius and beautiful to behold in every movement ... The perfect dancer.

Sunoo went on to America and with the patronage of Sol Hurok, a celebrated impresario gave his recitals in New York and at Hollywood, there to fraternize with the likes of Cecil B. de Mille and Arthur Rubinstein. He loved Hollywood and perhaps as a consequence went on to act in two successful films of the 1950s; The Planters Wife with Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert, followed by The Purple Plain with Gregory Peck and Win Min Than.

All of this, of course, was superb grist for the Loots Clan mill to be judiciously broadcast and sort of wallow in some sort of united recognition. Bernice Loots-Joslyn could convert a very slight relationship, with the right choice of words into an association of considerable substance!

Sunoo danced at some of the most famous and reputed theatres in the world. The Grand Theatre, Opera House in Poland, the Palais Du Louvre and Musée Guimet in Paris, the Aldwych in London, and the Town Hall in Stockholm. He danced for Mahatma Ghandi, Prime Minister Nehru, and Queen Elizabeth who bestowed an OBE on him in 1999.

All this glory was of course duly shared by the Loots Clan and to cement the relationship it was duly conveyed to anybody who would listen; that when Sunoo gave one of his rare performances in Bangalore the Loots’s received special invitations. The special invitations being an oblique reference to free tickets; free tickets sounded too cheap.

However, while it was not for public consumption there was no doubt that Sunoo’s father was very gracious and kind to Sarah Loots. Since she had suggested when Sunoo was a child he needed Horlicks to develop, he, in turn, ensured Sarah was always supplied with Horlicks and financial support even after she stopped working for the family. Kate Loots-Clarke worked as his Secretary in his Law Firm for a time and was very friendly with his sister Jessie.

Cousin Christine Loots spent time at Torquay with Granny Loots and watched Sunoo practising on the marble floor of the great hall. It’s something I couldn’t boast about but she could in our eternal fights of one-upmanship!

Led by Bunny, the Loots’s were not averse to name-dropping. Now armed with the pristine provenance of such lofty connections with the Sait’s and the Ram Gopal’s what chance had the unfortunate Shoolay Loots?

I’m not sure if Will ever engaged with the Ram Gopal family, he never mentioned it but Carrie assuredly did and a visit to Torquay Castle, whenever she was in Bangalore Cant was a must.

Carrie, who had the looks, panache, and the style to go with it tried to give the Loots family their own star. She was in Bombay holidaying with Uncle Don and Enid Plunkett (while dad sang Stormy Weather at home with only me for companionship). Uncle Don was the Chief Boiler Inspector of the State and visited us quite often when on tour. He seemed to cry a lot after a few sherbets so I wondered if Will had given him a clip behind the ears, but it turned out not to be the case. Will explained Uncle Don had been an Engineer on a merchant ship very early in the war which had been sunk and he had somehow survived the ordeal and this had affected him. He could have been my hero after being torpedoed and all that but his crying cancelled that out!

Anyway while in Bombay Carrie heard or read that a famous Movie Producer, Shorab Modi, was recruiting women for his epic movie Jhansi Ki Rani. Carrie had visions of a starring role when in fact